


Pieces of the Past

by SuddenlyAnonymous



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: F/M, Gen, Human animatronics, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Mild Horror, Platonic Romance, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-05-07 09:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5451182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuddenlyAnonymous/pseuds/SuddenlyAnonymous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Human!Springtrap/Reader] Your routine night shift at a soon-to-open horror attraction takes a turn for the weird once you meet a certain individual with rabbit ears and a broken memory. As you get acquainted with him, you find yourself uncovering his past, but you eventually start to wonder if there's something much more sinister at work here.</p><p>[Female Reader. Tags/rating may be updated later. Not dead.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to the Show

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE 05/12: The story's been revised due to plot-related changes and Springtrap's character being taken in a different direction. Mostly the latter. Chapters one and two have been partially rewritten, and chapter three is on the way. Hopefully.
> 
> Uh, hi there. So...this is essentially my first fanfiction for anything ever. At least the first one I've posted...sort of. But after a week-long debate with myself, I decided that I'd put too much time into it to just have it waste away on my hard drive, so why not? Plus I'm curious to see if this is worth continuing (i.e., if anyone actually likes this). 
> 
> So yeah...hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chances are you've made a very poor career choice.

“Oh, for the love of—dude, get out of the way! I’ll break it down myself!”

“Ugh, be my guest. I’m telling you though, you’re not gonna find anything here. This is pointless.”

“I think you mean _boring_. Can I go home now?”

The voices came from somewhere beyond the edges of his consciousness, a place he’d nearly forgotten existed. He felt a strange sensation in his chest, as if a fire that went out long ago had suddenly been reignited. It spread through the rest of his body, burning as the numbness in his joints and limbs slowly faded away. He inhaled sharply, his breath coming in short gasps as the stagnant air scraped against his throat. Every part of his being ached, no doubt a result of remaining rigid and unmoving for...how long had it been? Months? Years? Decades?

...how long had it been since  _ what _ , exactly? He didn’t understand any of this; he wasn’t even sure  _ where  _ he was. The empty darkness and the silence that surrounded him was familiar, and yet at the same time, it seemed... _ wrong _ , out of place, contradicting something. But what? A memory?

He remembered light. And music. And there had always been someone...

_ Someone...  _

Why did it all feel so far away?

He strained his mind for answers, but it was a wasted effort, save for a few more tiny flashes of clarity, fleeting images that dissolved away as quickly as they had appeared. Were they memories? What did they mean? None of it made sense, and every little flicker only coaxed an overwhelming feeling of dread to creep into his heart. 

He didn’t understand that either, and his awareness that something was missing only allowed it to fester.

_ Something’s not right... _

Suddenly, there was a painfully loud, splintering crash somewhere far to his left, causing one of his ears to involuntarily twitch even as he went stock-still again. Light poured into the previously pitch black room, so bright that it seemed to sear right through his eyelids; it took every ounce of self-control to keep himself from shielding his face. 

“Finally! That only took like...forever.”

“Would’ve been faster if you’d been helpin’ me from the get-go.”

“Aw, lay off, man! Now c’mon, let’s see if there’s anything interesting in here...”

The sound of shuffling footsteps reached him, and he realized with horror that the three were approaching him. _No, no, stay away,_ he pleaded. Every instinct was screaming at him to shrink further back into this room, back into the shadows he knew so well. He didn’t have a clue what these three were up to, and frankly, it didn’t matter to him. Something...something had happened in this place, hadn’t it? Something terrible. And no one was supposed to be here. No one was _ever_ supposed to come back. That much was becoming clear now.

As for him...there had to be a reason he was left here in the dark, alone, far from that distant memory of light he’d somehow held onto. He was never meant to be found, was he? Otherwise...

“Dude. Oh my God.”

“What is—son of a bitch!”

_ Oh no... _

He internally grimaced when he felt all three gazes latch onto him. There was nothing he could do now except hope that by some miracle, they would leave him be. He could only wait and listen, maybe try to make some sense of what was happening, but even that was becoming difficult, the voices fading as his mind grew weary...

_ No, stay awake! You have to stay awake! _

“Oh, man...do you realize how awesome this is?!”

“If it means I can go home, then yeah, it’s pretty awesome.”

_ Stay awake...! Please, just... _

“I knew we’d find something great eventually, but this...this is just unreal!”

“So does this mean I can go home?”

_...stay awake... _

“Shh! C’mon, dude, don’t kill the moment! We just, like, found our main attraction!”

But despite his best efforts, he slipped from consciousness again, the rest of the trio’s conversation falling on deaf ears...

* * *

_ Well, this job is exciting as ever. _

There really wasn’t much to it. All you had to do was sit in a creepy office from midnight until the very crack of dawn, checking the cameras and monitoring the building. That was pretty much it, no strings attached. Well, if you wanted to get picky, anything electronic had this miraculous ability to glitch out at any given time with little to no warning and—yeah, that actually was kind of problematic. 

Great atmosphere for a horror attraction though.

Regardless, everything seemed to be under control for now, so you sat back in your chair and propped your feet up on the desk, staring boredly at the oscillating fan before switching your gaze to the little figurines that had been placed in front of the window: a brown bear with a top hat, a bluish-purple rabbit with a bright red bowtie, and a yellow chicken who, for some reason, had little pointy teeth protruding from her beak. You thought they were actually kind of cute, even if the story behind them was far from it. 

The whole attraction was based on a chain of pizzerias from the 80s and early 90s: Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, “where fantasy and fun come to life,” as they said. It had been a kids’ place with some rather interesting “animatronics” as mascots. They were well loved too, if the scribbled drawings decorating the walls of the office were any indication. But, of course, things went horribly wrong.

From what you knew, it started when several young children went missing there, supposedly killed by some psycho behind closed doors, and no trace of them was ever found. After that, things apparently got...weird. Shady business practices aside, the animatronics started behaving strangely, especially at night, which may have caused quite a few security guards on the graveyard shift to mysteriously “vanish” as well. Naturally, rumors started flying around, shit hit the fan, and the place was shut down for good, later twisting into a popular urban legend.

Or something like that. Most modern-day Fazbear enthusiasts—yes, those existed—couldn't agree on anything, but that seemed to be the most accepted story.

Your eyes wandered over to the slip of paper, a colorful little advertisement, tacked up next to the window. 

**Adventure World presents Fazbear’s Fright: The Horror Attraction!**

**Opening in October for our Halloween Frightmare Extravaganza 2015!**

You never thought you’d be a part of this insanity, yet here you were, thanks to a series of unfortunate events and the moron they left in charge of the project. Said moron was a man by the name of Nathan Scott, otherwise known as your best friend since junior high. He was, without a doubt,  _ the _ guy for the job, having been obsessed with Freddy’s since at least his teenage years and accumulating an extensive knowledge of the franchise and the many myths surrounding it as a result.

On the other hand, you’d been in need of a job after your previous workplace laid you off about a week ago. That is, until Nathan had woken you up at some ungodly hour, begging you to keep an eye on the place since the guy originally hired for the graveyard shift had apparently ditched at the last minute. Normally, you’d tell him to screw off and let you sleep, but the promise of a paycheck had you out of bed in seconds.

Cut to a couple of nights later, and you were promoted to something of a permanent stand-in; Nathan claimed that he and the rest of his ragtag team of weirdos were too preoccupied with who-knows-what to go out and find a proper replacement. 

So...hey, lucky you, right?

Just then, a phone rang nearby, jarring you out of your thoughts. Confused, since it sounded nothing like your ringtone, you glanced up to find that a bright red phone, one that was pulled right out of an 80s sitcom, had been set up beside to the animal figurines; how you hadn’t noticed it earlier was a question to be saved for later.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me...” you muttered as you answered the call. 

You’d barely taken a breath to say a simple hello when a cheerful voice suddenly blared right into your ear, “Hey, hey! Glad you came back for another night!”

“Of course I came back. This is my job," you huffed. “And is the prehistoric phone really necessary, Nate?”

“Absolutely,” Nathan replied. “But hey, we had a pretty good day today, so I promise things will be a lot more interesting this time!”

“I’m glad to hear that things are just dandy for you, but if ‘interesting’ means ‘more random props and another set of drawings’ then I’m setting up a Wi-Fi adapter and bringing a laptop with me. Six hours alone in here every night is driving me mad from boredom. If I end up in a mental ward after all this is over, I'm blaming you.”

“And me and Matt  _ just _ helped you break out of Mount Massive Asylum. Sad, [Y/N]. Just sad,” he teased, and you could almost hear him shaking his head in mock disappointment.

“You’re a huge nerd, you know that?” you said dryly.

Nathan snorted in response, “Like you have room to talk. But yeah, we did find more of that, but I’ll have to save that for later.”

“What a shame.”

You were willing to bet that he had made a face at the phone before he continued, “Okay, so like, first of all, I had this cool idea. So you know how people are gonna, like, go right by your office and then exit out the back door?”

“Didn’t think I needed a refresher on the layout of the building, but...yeah?” you answered, frowning slightly. What was he getting at?

“Well...guess what! You’ve officially become a part of the attraction! You’ll be starring as...” he paused for dramatic emphasis, “... _ the security guard! _ ”

“Um...”

“Oh, c’mon, isn’t it awesome?!” Nathan exclaimed. “Like, you’re already monitoring everything, you know, making sure nothing catches on fire and all that, and now you’ll be a part of the show!”

“Why?” You were already pretty sure you knew the answer to that though.

“It’ll like...make it feel really authentic, I think,” he said. 

Of course. Unbelievable.

“Really adds to the whole, you know, experience and all that. Dude, what if we could hunt down a genuine Fazbear security uniform for you on eBay or something? Like, how cool would that be?!”

“You’re telling me you don’t already have one?” you gasped in obviously fake horror. “Nathaniel James Scott, you are a disgrace to your kind!”

“H-hey! You try finding one that isn't just some crappy cosplay!” Nathan retorted. “But I think you’ll be happy to hear that this means that Andrew’s idea of putting you in that, uh... _ other _ crappy cosplay and having you walk around saying ‘Boo!’ is totally out.”

“Oh, thank God!” you laughed, but not before grimacing at the memory of Andrew’s brilliant suggestion from yesterday’s get-together. That “outfit” would haunt your nightmares more than anything in the actual horror attraction. 

Your attention was drawn away from the conversation, however, when you heard a distant noise, something akin to a soft click, coming from the opposite end of the attraction. You immediately cringed; that one sound had become your worst enemy over the previous week. 

You quickly rolled your chair over to the system monitor, blocking out whatever Nathan was blabbering on about now, and switched it on. Just as you suspected, there was a big red error message helpfully telling you that the vents had gone offline. You forced a reboot, and the monitor let out a series of beeps before the error message vanished, a double-click signaling that the ventilation was back in working order. For now. 

“...uh, dude? [Y/N]? You still alive in there?” Nathan was saying.

“Very funny,” you deadpanned, switching the monitor off. “Vents went out. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, heh...yeah, don’t let them stay down for too long. Keep that air flowin’, otherwise you might start seeing some  _ crazy  _ stuff, man.”

“Awesome.”

“Isn’t it?! So...uh, where’d you leave at?”

“Getting rid of the embarrassing costume for a less embarrassing one.”

“Uh...oh yeah! Yeah, there’s another reason for that, and it’s even better!” Nathan’s voice was practically trembling with enthusiasm. “We made another trip to the old restaurant today and got into that back room—you know, the one I was telling you about before? Dude, you’re not gonna believe this!”

“Try me.”

“We found one!” he stated excitedly. “A  _ real  _ one!!”

Your jaw actually dropped open. You didn’t even have to ask him to elaborate; the way he delivered the news pretty much told you everything you needed to know.

“Nate, you’re joking.” 

“Dude, I can’t even, like, joke about this! I—we’re not entirely sure what character it—he’s supposed to be yet. Looks like a rabbit, but I’ve never even heard of one that was gold. But this is totally legit, man. It has to be.”

“So you found something from Freddy’s and you actually  _ don’t  _ know a thing about it? Holy shit, someone call the press!” you exclaimed.

“But seriously though, isn’t that still kind of awesome?! It’s almost like we have—”

On the other end of the line, an annoyingly loud 8-bit rendition of “March of the Toreadors” from  _ Carmen _ began to blare away somewhere in the background. 

“Really, Nate? You’re still using that one?”

“Shoot, I—uh...I’d better take this call...” Nathan stammered. “Uh, look, it—he’s in there somewhere, I’m...I’m sure you’ll see him!”

“Wait, it’s already here?!” you squeaked. 

“Yeah, s-should be!”

“‘Should be?!’ What—?”

_ “ _ L-look, I’ve gotta go. Like, right now. Bye, [Y/N]!”

“Goodbye...?” There was a click and a dial tone, and you pulled the phone away from your ear and stared at it, unamused by Nathan’s antics. Placing it back on its base, you made a grab for the monitor; you wanted to see this thing now. As you flicked through the different camera views, your thoughts inadvertently started to wander back to what you’d been thinking on before Nathan’s phone call, specifically the bit about the nighttime security guards and their alleged talent for disappearing into thin air. You would never tell him, but his latest discovery actually was a bit unsettling when you had that information sitting in the back of your mind. 

It didn’t help that you couldn’t find it anywhere.

Your face fell when the security feed gave way to static. An error message popped up on the corner of the screen, telling you that, yes, the cameras had indeed gone down, just in case it wasn’t already obvious. You couldn’t stop yourself from groaning as you restarted the system. This was so typical. 

The monitor beeped as it processed your request, briefly blacking out before it displayed a clear view of the antique arcade cabinets that were situated in one of the hallway corners. Good enough. You were about to switch to a different camera when you heard a loud, echoing bang come from somewhere in the building, followed by a noisy crash as something fell to the floor.

That wasn’t the vents this time. 


	2. Trespasser

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something wicked this way comes...

When your initial reaction was to pretend it was nothing and carry on with your business, you really wanted to punch yourself in the face. You should have known better than that―it was never nothing. In defiance, you quickly started cycling through the cameras, searching for anything out of the ordinary, which was an ultimately useless effort on your part as they shorted out for the second time in the past five minutes.

“Unbelievable,” you growled.

Gritting your teeth in frustration, you initiated another reboot and gave the monitor a smack for good measure, but you weren’t going to sit and wait for them to come back online this time, oh no. Your guess was that someone had blundered in to steal one of these “artifacts” they deemed valuable.

Time to do your job.

You set the monitor down on the desk, hastily standing up and making your way towards the doorway that lead out of the office. As an afterthought, you snatched up the flashlight that had been hidden in one of the drawers. Not exactly the greatest protection, but you’d have to make do with what you had. It _was_ metal though, and it seemed pretty sturdy; at the very least, you could probably dislocate someone’s jaw if you swung it into their face hard enough.

...alright, so maybe this wasn’t a very good idea, but doing nothing seemed like a much stupider alternative. And, you know, you’d probably get fired for not doing what you were being paid to do.

You exited the office, turning on the flashlight and aiming its beam ahead of you as you swiftly strolled down the hallway. You were suddenly thankful that you’d decided to grab it; perhaps it was because you were a little more apprehensive than you’d like to admit, but the shadows that streaked the empty halls seemed much darker than before. The still, heavy air did you no favors either, but that could probably be blamed on the ventilation, or rather, the lack thereof. You hoped.

It was also deathly quiet, and though you took care to muffle your footsteps, they might as well have been cymbals crashing against the tile floor. But even as quiet as it was, you heard no telltale signs of movement anywhere. Just silence and the very, very faint buzz of the fluorescent light bulbs above you. It was honestly very tempting to call out with a confused and stereotypical “Hello?” or “Anybody here?” or something to that extent...

_...yeah, right. Because the creep lurking in the dark is totally going to answer you._

You swept the flashlight's beam over the dark corners near the old arcade cabinets, checking for any signs of life. Of course, there weren't any, and you weren't sure what you were expecting to find to begin with. Maybe you were overreacting just a bit; the building was designed to give people the spooks after all. That noise may not have been “just the wind,” but it easily could've been something just as mundane; it was hardly a stretch to assume that a prop had slipped out of place.

The uneven, barely audible footfalls coming from behind you, however, could not be explained away as easily.

...wait a minute.

A chill raced down your spine, but you tried your best to ignore it as you took the flashlight in both hands in case you had to forcefully introduce it to someone's face. Everything was fine. You could handle this. You wouldn’t be here if you couldn’t. You whipped around, more than ready to take action, only to be met with the sight of...nothing. The hallway was completely empty, as it had always been, and the footsteps had ceased just as you had turned to confront what you'd thought was their source.

The flashlight rattled as your hands began to shake uncontrollably, the hair on the back of your neck standing up. This wasn’t right. You hadn’t imagined that. You _knew_ you hadn’t. You knew you weren’t alone. Something else was here. Something was watching you with eyes that burned holes into your back...

Suddenly, a sound like distorted radio static pierced the air, flashes of white instantly bursting across your vision. In response, a searing, white-hot pain flared up in your forehead. It hit you with the force of an out of control train, and you stumbled backwards, clutching at your head as you doubled over in agony. You thought you cried out, but your voice was lost in the discordant noise, and it was growing louder by the second.

Something moved just outside of your field of vision. A shadow? You blinked, and you saw it creeping alongside the wall in plain view. Its spindly form was scorched black, entirely featureless save for its white pinprick eyes. Eyes that happened to be staring right at _you_ . It stopped when it knew you were looking at it. And continued to stare. And stare. And _stare_. The longer you looked at it, the more intense the static assaulting your ears became, transforming into a shrill ringing that somehow managed to be even more agonizing.

You were forced to tear your burning eyes away from it, only to be met with the sight of a second that was much larger, closer, and considerably less...two-dimensional. The instant your gaze landed on the blackened creature, however, it lunged for you with impossible speed. You barely had time to throw your arms up in defense; you didn't even have time to scream.

So it screamed for you. As it pounced, it let out a horrific sound loud enough to hear over the ringing in your ears; it could only be described as some sort of mechanical hissing screech straight from hell itself. The very instant it would have made contact with you, however, you were blinded by another flash of white as the thing evaporated in a wisp of black smoke.

And...that was it. Just like that, the screeching static had ceased. The pounding pain in your head faded away. There was nothing lurking in the hallway anymore, no moving shadows or demonic black entities. There was nothing but quiet throughout the entire building.

Everything was fine.

Your legs felt weak all of a sudden, and you fell to your knees in the middle of the hall, only just now realizing you were sweating and gasping for breath like you’d just run a marathon. For a few moments, you just sat there, waiting for your heart rate to slow down, not sure what had just happened and how you were supposed to respond to it. You did have a few choice words, ones that would probably make your grandmother faint, but you were still too stunned to do or say much of anything at moment.

 _Jeez, was that what Nate had meant by seeing “crazy stuff” if the ventilation remained offline for too long?_ you wondered distantly, just before a scowl crossed your face as you put two and two together. The issues with that godforsaken outdated system had just gone from mildly annoying to downright hazardous. Its authenticity could kiss your ass.

Next chance you got, Nathan was a dead man.

But for now, the more urgent matter was getting off the floor and fixing the stupid thing before it got any worse, if that was even possible. You grimaced at the thought, then chastised yourself for your variant of the ever classic, “Could things possibly get any worse?” The short answer was yes, they could, so shut up before they do.

You pushed yourself off the ground, picking up your trusty flashlight―you hadn’t even noticed you’d dropped it―and dusting yourself off before briskly heading back to the office.

When you stepped through the doorway, you were met with the repetitive buzzing of an alarm, a flashing red warning light accompanying it. Safety measures for prolonged ventilation failures. Big help they were.

Before anything else, you tossed the flashlight back in the drawer and hurried over to the desk to reset any systems that were malfunctioning. Which was nearly all of them.

“Seriously?” you scoffed, not even that surprised at this point. “Anything else feel like going on the fritz tonight?”

Damn it, you needed to stop saying things like that. You were really pushing your luck now.

With a sigh, you rebooted everything, impatiently waiting for it all to come back online. Soon, you heard that wonderful double-click as the ventilation started up. The alarm cut off as a refreshing rush of cool, clean air met your face. You relished in it for a moment, slumping down into your chair and taking deep breaths to relax as you watched the desk fan’s endless spinning. Terrifying as it had been, you decided it would be for the best to try to put your little imaginary misadventure out of your mind. Much like a nightmare, there was no need to dwell on something that wasn’t even real.

The cause of it, on the other hand, was not going to be forgotten or forgiven so easily.

You pulled your phone out and hastily typed out a brief yet intimidating message to Nathan regarding the rather interesting technical difficulties you were experiencing, consisting of a threat involving a bank robbery and a ball-point pen. It took you two seconds to change your mind, reasoning that he wouldn’t take something like that seriously, and you rewrote it before leaving your phone out on the desk. You then reached for the monitor. You wanted to find out what _had_ made that noise earlier, mostly out of curiosity to see what you had gone through all that trouble for. Maybe you’d find Nathan’s newest relic while you were at it...

“...why did you come back?”

You froze. You really wanted to believe that you had imagined that strange, soft-spoken voice. You really, really wanted to believe that your oxygen-deprived mind was still playing tricks on you. You really hoped there was an error message flashing on the maintenance panel again. But the device displayed no error messages of any sort in the split-second you glanced at it, and for once, the sight made your heart sink. Ice surging through your veins, you spun your chair around, only to immediately leap out of it with a high-pitched yelp when you looked to the back corner of the office.

Your gaze had locked with a pair of silver eyes. _Glowing_ silver eyes.

Yep, things had just gone from bad to worse. You just _had_ to say it, didn't you?

The bad lighting in the office hid your visitor just a little too well, leaving the rest of him a vague, humanoid silhouette. The glimmer from his eyes did shed some light on a small area of his face, but it was too dim to make out any of his features. If anything, that just made it worse, and suddenly you were wishing you hadn’t so casually tossed that flashlight back in the desk drawer…for more reasons than one. Maybe if you could sidle over there fast enough…

“…can you understand me?” he questioned when you didn’t offer up a response, taking a single step forward. His voice was...oddly melodious and also remarkably out of place in the current predicament, the slight tremor in his words almost making him sound…worried. Not that it did anything to put you at ease, and you took one step back to counter him.

“Wh-who are you?” you asked shakily, and you could’ve kicked yourself in the shin for sounding so feeble. You were supposed to be a security guard, for crying out loud; you could at least pretend you had a spine. But then again, most security guards probably didn’t deal with people hiding out in dark corners whose goddamn eyes were glowing…maybe. “How did you even—”

“I’m asking the questions right now,” he cut you off so abruptly that it made you flinch, though his tone almost instantly softened again. “Besides, that...is that really important?

“...kind of?” you answered, not trusting yourself to say more than that.

Despite his insistence that he was carrying out an interrogation, he went quiet, seeming to lean forward ever so slightly as if carefully studying you. A few seconds of uneasy silence, and he reluctantly took another small step in your direction—an inch or two more out of his dark corner, and you might be able to at least see his face. He then paused, as if he'd just had the same revelation. Why did he refuse to show himself?

What was he trying to hide?

“No one was supposed to come back...” he said as he straightened his posture again, exhaling slowly. “...so why did you?”

 _Come back to where? You wanna be a little more vague?_ you internally remarked. Just when you were on the verge of giving him a reply that was equally cryptic, he tossed another question your way. “Why did you bring me here?”

_What._

You could only continue to stare as you tried to make sense of what he was asking. How did he expect you to give him any sort of answer when you didn't even know who the hell you were talking to? If he wanted this conversation to go somewhere, he was going to have to meet you halfway, almost literally, whether he—and you, for that matter—liked it or not.

Goddammit, why were you even doing this? All of your muscles tensed, ready to spring into action, to run and never look back. The door was only a short sprint away, and there was no way he could catch you if you took off suddenly enough. This guy was insane. That's all there was to it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Though the glowing eyes complicated things a bit.

“I don’t understand. I don't even know who you are...” was all you were able to say.

Realizing he hadn’t thought this through and pretty much had no choice but to unveil his identity, he let out a soft sigh, then hesitantly made his way into the light so you could see who he was.

Or, more appropriately, _what_ he was, and the revelation made your blood run even colder.

He appeared to be a scrawny young man, early twenties or so at the most, with scraggly, dark blond fringe that hung in his face; the rest of his unkempt hair had been tied back with a strip of fabric and was almost long enough to reach his hips. A myriad of jagged scars marred his otherwise youthful features, zig-zagging their way along his lower cheeks and over his eyes, and you could only guess there were more hidden under the bandages wrapped around his arms and neck. The dress shirt and golden waistcoat he wore had likely once been quite distinguished, but now they were dingy, threadbare, and had evidently fought with an angry pair of scissors until they looked as ragged as their owner.

But the characteristic of his that drew the most of your attention were the two―well, more like one and a half―tattered rabbit ears set atop his head, both of which swiveled forward attentively as you acknowledged them.

Tattered, tarnished _gold_ rabbit ears.

_Oh shit._

“Why did you bring me here?” he repeated his earlier question, the subtle, sideways flick of his left, intact ear indicating a growing irritation with your unwillingness to speak. But you couldn't find it in yourself to reply, your heart lurching into your throat and blocking out your voice as the color drained from your face.

The imaginary fiends that had been crawling around in the hallway were one thing, but this was a whole new level of weird―no, weird wasn’t even scratching the surface. This had passed weird and ended up at flat-out surreal. There was no way this could actually be happening because...hell, if you didn’t know any better, you’d say that Nathan’s most recent discovery was standing in your office, waiting for any response from you that wasn’t slack-jawed horror.

And if that really was the case, you had a lot more to fret over than the finicky ventilation.

“Y-you're...?” you began.

“...Springtrap,” he reluctantly introduced himself. “My name is Springtrap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the revision took so long. Kind of lost the drive due to...reasons. Hopefully chapter three will be up a lot quicker.


End file.
